Golden hamster´s cheeks can stretch all the way to his hips

X-rays show how hamster stuffs food into his cheeks

A chapter of the series 'Pets: Wild at Heart' show how a hamster stuffs food into his mouth. According to the BBC blog. the show producers didn´t considered a hamster for any chapter of the series, they were mainly focused on larger, more popular pets. It was only when the producer Phillip Dalton visited the local pet store that things changed, as he says:

While looking at the hamsters, one particular fur ball stood out from the crowd. He was stuffing his cheeks in great haste as his cheeks stretched down the side of his body. He doubled in size before my eyes. The behaviour was visually funny and intriguing, so immediately I wanted to learn more about how those cheeks worked. His audition was a success.

As you can listen in the video below, the hamster secretes no saliva to keep the food fresh and dry. You can see through x-rays how his pouches extend all the way to his hips. It's impressive all the food they can stuff into, it would be good for us humans to do that with the new year's grapes, all those grapes and only 60 seconds to eat them!

Anyway, the hamster really tries hard to take all the food with him, and when he can't fit any more food into his mouth, he carries the rest with him.

Surely this little cute hamster is wild at heart, what would he do if you try to take that food he kept with so much effort?